Venting on my writing

    Said this before or words along the same line anyway:

Anyway, I have a story for Quarter Two of WotF,  one for the next quarter already finished, so I will be sending in both. But if I don’t sell anything, anywhere by the time I receive the rejection for the second one I will think again about sending out stories or not. 

Dean Wesley Smith said, “You will, Louis, as you keep progressing, which you are. “ after I made the comment it would be nice to sell a story. I think he said something similar a couple of years ago. Still nothing--can’t even get a comment. 

I know I’ve gotten better but still not good enough. I keep missing it no matter how much I improve. My new word processor has a proofreader section. I use it and I believe it does make my writing a bit better. Less sentences starting with But and And, less use of over used words and phrases and a couple of other like improvements. But a bit improvement doesn’t help enough. Neither does five years of learning-118 stories. Most people would have improved enough to at least get comments by now. 

If I decide to quit sending them in I may see if there are still free sites around or work harder to do covers and try e-pubing my stories. That way some people will read them at least.

I said after the Q3 of WotF but I will have to wait so long for that rejection I probably will go ahead and send in one for Q4 just not count it.  And I said sell something but if I got a Finalist on WotF without getting in I will still will count it as a sell or if all of a sudden I get a bunch of comments. But if I receive no good news about my writing by then--(shoulder shrug), we shall see how I feel. 

I said this not all that long ago but Dean is the only editor who likes my writing--he said some good things about four openings I did for the Online Workshop--and he’s not buying. It really is nice to know someone likes my stuff, but one isn’t enough.   

I will keep writing and learning between now the Q3 rejection but so far it hasn’t done much I don’t expect it will in the next six months or so. 

Thoughts on President Obama

Warning another political post, if you need a warning after the title (:...it’s in three parts

Part of this is a repeat.

  

Part One New for here I believe-it was a letter to the editor my local paper didn’t print:

  Now we are going to have more laws, regulations, and rules--less freedoms, and businesses. More broken Constitution. Longer Recession--if anyone thinks Obama knows  anything about the economy, prove it. Reagan could have had us at least half way out of it by now. Media reports--I don’t mean Fox News either--about a year and half to two years ago showed that a good sized portion of the jobs President Obama  created lasted two weeks to two years, some were counted twice and one certain business lied about using money they were given to hire new workers. 

President Obama is a bigger liar than Bill Clinton and Nixon put together. Recently almost everything he said about Romney was a lie and he lied about what he knew about what happened in Syria. It was his people-if not the President’s himself whose lack of knowing what to do led to the torture and the murder of our Ambassador and three others. If it wasn’t for at least two heroes--one of which was killed--there would have been thirty more deaths. 

So more debt for the US and most probably less water for the Calif. farmers and more punishment taxes to get us to do what he wants to do. There’s hardly anything to stop him, he’s a hard core liberal--statest 

   

Part Two:

Some thoughts on the election:

We will have more laws, regulations, rules, more broken Constitution,less freedoms.

Negative campaigning works, almost everything Obama’s people said about Romney was proven a lie.

No one cared that President Obama lied to cover his and his PC liberal people’s incombantents that resulted in the death of four people in Libra and how thirty more would have died if it wasn’t for some heroes-one of which later died. It’s worse than Watergate.

The President said we needed everyone to work together. Why doesn’t he? He’s the one that basically told the Republicans in Congress that they would do it his way because he won. They need to fight tax increases. Taking more of people’s money won’t help the overspending or cause prosperity. 

Bill Clinton was wrong. We have evidence from Four Presidents and some Governors that Reagan’s method works every time. The economy would be better now if we had used his way. The President is the stubborn one, he won’t listen. 

The people who were lied to about being entitled to other people’s money because someone is keeping them down won the day. It looks like The Spirit that made America great is dying. 

Part Three New thoughts:

Many of Obama’s voters decided it would be better with goodies from the government: cell phones, very long unemployment etc than having a good chance at a great jobs market. Notice I didn’t say all of the people that voted for him only a good portion. They wanted to barely get along in life with guaranties from the government instead of working for an all around more successful life with an ideal that has proven to work for a better economy a lot more often that what the President is doing. People can and even now some are succeeding in what they want to do in life more under the way it’s been the last hundred-two hundred years than the “fair” way liberals and statists want to do. 

Update for Q2 of WotF

I redid the opening of my story again. I hope I didn't mess it up bad but I have had all types of trouble with that opening. I think it's closer to what I first envision it to be. I had to modify that vision when I finally wrote it out when I wrote it originally. Now when I went back to add more of the five human senses to the opening--I had only sight--I also rearranged sentences so it is, as I said, closer to what it should be.  Dean Wesley Smith says that is good in openings and David the Reader at WotF has stated he likes the five human senses also. 

I also had to redo other sentences as I went along. I mentioned one character sooner, deleted a couple of points I never made use of and tried to cut a few of the He-s at the start of sentences. Not done yet. I played around too much and I had to do more work on this one to cut the stupid mistakes and unused stuff than usual for my stories. Many times there is very little of that but this story had all types of mistakes and even left out phrases etc.  



It better be one of my better stories when I get done.

Another update Jan'13 PS

While working on the revision of my Q2 WotF story I got side tracked about something I forget...oh I had just sent out a story for the first time today--more on that later--and I decided since I was thinking about it I better list it. I have six pages of what I call listed stories. Those are the ones that are done and have been sent out at least once. So while I looked for it in my WIP folder I found three other stories finished and listed but I hadn't transferred the file to my short story folder. So I double checked a couple of them and moved them all to the right folder.

Anyway, while doing all that and trashing a bunch of files I don't need anymore, I found six stories that need revising. And I know I have at least one more in another folder. Come to think of it there is at least one more in yet another folder. So a total of eight stories to revise...at least. When?  I need another day off from work.  Oh there are also at least two stories on paper I need to type up. So that means ten tales  of tardiness to tell.


And it's later--that is back to the story I sent out today. I said I have six pages of filed stories. That is soon to be seven. I decided to have only twenty per page, actually a file, for I list each market I send the  stories to, the date and underline the market and date when I receive the rejection. Any that sell are bolded but the only one in BOLD is the HM from onthepremises.com.  I also list the full title and the word exact word count.

I now have 119 stories listed. That means one more and I start another file. That one more could be the Q2 story or the Lost In Water story I wrote from one of the settings I did for Dean's online workshop.

Or another one I could get ready tos end out by next weekend.

Update Jan'13 PS

I've mentioned this before but evidently my muse likes the the cover of "Hex Appeal" by E.L. Elrod.

Cover Here

Off an done since I started reading the book I've been thinking of the story so I decided I better do it, which means I need to do it at work interrupting my work on two WIPs there.

As I have stated more than once even though the girl on the cover is in it, it's a relationship story, she's a cop undercover. Her husband does not like it that she dresses like that especially when she can't tell him what case she is working on. He's a low level Mage and there's a vampire and a very adult situation during one of their fights. I've debated on how to do that situation and if I should. But hubby uses the situation to show her that he really did something and that he really has a certain ability.

Funny thing is that I had assumed and thought out the situations from his POV. But hold it-Raised eyebrows. Uh, it's not, its from her POV.  Amazing.  I hope I can pull that off without making her to cliche-ish. Any tough, career   minded woman here like to look it over?

And the story will is now longer. While writing it discovered that instead of as I thought that she was undercover to catch "john-s" but she isn't she is undercover-bait- to catch a murderer.  I still think the story will be shortish and I believe I have figured out how to do that adult situation.

discussion Benedict Jacka PS

A bit more on the "Cursed" book.

I said that I have already thought out a character in this world of Jacka's . I do  I know some of his background, where he lives and why he lives there. Instead of England he would be in the US but by "where he lives" I meant his house.  Anyway, I think it would be neat to put him in Australia but I don't know enough about that country to do that.

Anyway, I also know what power he would have. But if I was allowed to write I'm not sure of Jacka would agree to the power.

I will see if I could come up with my own world that would have a similar magic workings. There are already "universes" with the same type so one more would be possible.

I don't know when but it would be fun.

Update Jan '13

A bit long this time and there could very well be a PS in a day or so.

   Time for another update. 

    More progress on both Stone Within and Angel Kin my two novel WIPs. But still going to take a year to finish them at this speed. I may work on one at home once I get the two other novels ready to send out. 

Speaking of that I will need to start revising the SC one this week and work on spell checking etc the second group of chapters of Two struggles. The first chapter is ready--no more work on it. But the others need lost of nitpick and grammar help evidently.

Finished the story for Q2 ’13 for WotF.  When I go back over it I will have to see if I can cut it down, I still think it's longer than it should be even though that could be because I thought it would be around 5 to 7 thousand words. It's way over that.

 Wrote one story since the last update. A simple story of 1400 words. I sent it out. 

A rant here on myself:

I can't figure out of I sent a certain story out already or not. I revised it tonight, making sure it had enough of the five human senses and printed it. Oops, found I already have a cover letter for it. That must be the story I sent to F&SF on Dec 31. But if I did, as far as I can find, I sent it without a header and with two words missing. I suppose I could of if I got in a hurry but I don't think I have made that mistake in years if ever. 

As far as I can remember I did send a story that day, the cover letter was made Dec 30th.  

Of course no response form F&SF yet. Even with New Year's Day in there, there should have been enough time for them to get it back to me. Scott seems to run a day or two later than Steve but still. 

Oh well, if I don't receive a rejection by next weekend I will send it for sure. Actually, it might be better if I didn't send it. I think it's slightly better with about a hundred words added mostly the five senses. 

I am sending in another story and got reminded that I was in the middle of revising another story when I interrupted it for some other work so I need to get that one done and sent out. Maybe to BCS first when I get the one I sent them a month ago back. Which seems like should be any day now.

And since we are talking about F&SF I should have gotten something by now. Even if five or so times it has taken a lot longer. Well, twice it took over a month and the others were only a week or so longer. So there is still a chance I will receive something. Oh, once I received a rejection for story A a couple of days after I received a rejection for story B. A must have gotten forgotten.

Enough of that rant.

  Finished the Essentials Online Workshop, almost. Still need to watch a couple of videos and go back over the pervious ones once more. I did learn a lot I learned that Dean remembers my writing from six years ago. And he thinks not only did I do a great job on the openings and outline I have improved a lot over the years. Which is good to hear but he seems to be the only editor who thinks that. 

Well, this is a bit long so that is it for tonight.

Non-writing Venting--Liberal Bureaucrats

Liberal Bureaucrats are even worse than Conservative Bureaucrats  

Took me  awhile to get to this but I wanted vent on something that had nothing to do with writing...it probably at least borders on the political but here goes:

Here in Calif. They have changed how overtime is counted. Instead of over 40 hours a week its anything over eight hours a day, I have no idea where they got that idea but all of sudden a few years ago the liberals started to say that businesses owners where cheating their employees out of over time hours by not doing the over eight hours a day thing. I don’t know if they had this in the back of their mind for decades and just now got to it or if they suddenly discovered that is how the socialist nations of Europe do it. Or ?? 

I have listen to them for years on the radio and read what many have written but I hadn’t heard of that before. Of course I could easily have missed discussions about over time but seems like I would caught something somewhere.

All that leads to what I want to vent about. 

Because of the new thoughts on overtime the rules and regs have changed...a couple of times. Well, this year they change again.  Always new rules and regs here in Calif many times like in this case fixing things that are not broken.

Where I work we have had a good deal. We come in half an hour early so we can get off  two and a half hours early on Friday. Been doing it for around 30 years--we love it. Because of the work load part of the year we have to get off and the regular time on Friday--everyone starts asking when we can get back to leaving early on Friday.

Now though because of the new regs it looks like we have to stop it. The Owners of the business talked to a third party who knows about the rules and regs to try to figure out how to work it out but as of right now it looks like they failed. It might be that Management decided it wasn’t worth the effort because it was made too complicated but still it’s the liberal Bureaucrats have stepped in because they know better and want to control us so they fixed something that wasn’t broken. 

There was obsoletely no reason to make things that different and complicated. Yes, certain people were truly being cheated but it didn’t take these huge changes to fix that.(notice I said truly cheated) I wouldn’t be surprised if there were already laws that would have fixed the problem if they had been enforced. 

Now because they stuck their noses into something not their business and are forcing us to go their way because they know better than we do--we have to stop a good thing.  UGH!  and GAAA!

Found a way to change colors

So here is another change. I like the background better but if anyone has any problems reading it please say so.

My reading--discussion Benedict Jacka

I'm reading "Cursed" by Benedict Jacka. It's book number two in the Urban Fantasy series about Alex Verus.

I'm also reading "The Ninth Circle" which I started first but I needed to go a couple of places I didn't want to take my Nook so I started "Cursed".

The series has a very well thought out magic system, so is the main character Alex. A complex man of fears, desires, vulnerabilities, and honor, among other things. He has his own ideas of right and wrong which are what most would considered moral. Jacka does a great job of getting into Alex's mind and heart. The action is well done and the other characters are well devloped also.

Two things about the books. First is that Jim Butcher likes them and thinks they are on par with his Dresden files.  He made other statements along those lines. Actually, I believe that John Levitt's Dog Days series should be getting those types of comments by Jim. Of course I need to say that Jacka might be the better writer but that's not saying Levitt is bad in anyway.

The second thing I want to say is that I have already come up with my own character for Jacka's world    :)

Most probably I will never get the chance to write a story legally but I know a lot about my character's background and who he is already. It would be fun to do him. Oops, no name yet.

New look again

Okay, I did it but I'm not satisfied.

They have various background pics but for some strange unknown reason the Blog description can't be read on my favorites. The blog will not let me change the color of the description even though it says I can.  So right now I'm stuck with this one.  There are two I liked and if the words in the description were white you could see them but they are stuck in a color that blends in enough with the background so you can't read the words.

I will probably eventually try to upload a pic and test with whatever color the blogger thinks the description needs.

PS on writing goals

Oops, while thinking about something Dean said on his Online workshop I realized I didn't finish something.

I said I was going to get two novels ready for sending out and/or Indie publishing. What I am going to do is actually send out those two books and possibly publish them on the Internet. According to Dean you can do both. 

I would need some one to do the covers for Indie publishing and Pod-print on demand but I can do that.

I would like to get at least on book published the traditional way but watch out for those new contracts they are a lot bigger now and have some not good clauses. One has the writer pretty much become the writing slave for the publisher. You get paid but you do what they say when they say it--when it comes to any type of writing under any name. 

So I would need an IP or Intellectual properties lawyer. One who knows publishing, 

More later

Short term goal of blog

    I will be changing it again, not sure what colors or the background but I'm thinking of keeping the basic design I have now, just change the background and some colors.

Not sure when, I want to do it before Monday--that depends on my memory and how much writing I get done this week.

Right now I've spent too much time doing online stuff, I need to write.

My Spiritual Goals for '13 plus God and us

                    I also have spiritual goals which this post is about.

    The most obvious one--for most Christians anyway--is to become more Christ like. This I can do by spending more time in the Word of God--The Bible: studying it, reading it meditating on it. By listening to more Bible teachers. By deciding to respond like He would in given situations. That last is a lot harder to do than to say but it is something we can work on with the help of the help of the Holy Spirit who has to do most of the work in us. 

    I said become Christ like but that means my attitude, responses and actions not necessarily my personality. God made us all different on purpose and some of us have a strange sense of humor or a certain way we think and other features of a personality that does not need to be changed. The rough edges need to filed off and sometimes we have learned traits:like fear or a bad mood all the time, cruelty that need to be unlearned so our real personality can come out but its still us. 

    Going along with that are the desires we are born with. In this context by desire I mean what we want to do in life. Write? Learn about the medical field? Paint? Program computers-design apps? By in charge of our life-under Jesus-with our own business? Those types of desires God likes and is willing to help us with. Sometimes a desire gets perverted as in someone sets up a criminal organization of some type instead of a business. Or they become a seducer for sex. While that needs to be fixed as I said God likes those type of desires. Desires for: money above all else, sex with people we aren’t married to, things, revenge are other types of desires God does not like but he can deal with those. He’s done it before.  

Anyway back to my goals. 

Another goal is to give more money and time to help those in need or to helps preach the gospel. 

Hmm, some of the goals I thought about including I have already mentioned in the first goal of becoming more Christ like. Spending more time in the Word, listening to sermons and teachings.

And another goal is praying--talking to God which includes worship and just being with Him. Asking for things and help is included but not the only thing. 

That’s it for this too. It’s possibly I forgot something at the moment so again there might be a PS. 

Writing Goals for '13

Okay, it’s a New Year...time for setting goals and maybe new beginnings.

I don’t make resolutions but I can make goals. First though a thing about the difference between goals and dreams.  Goals are things you can do and have control over. Dreams you have no control over.  You can do what you can do to help a dream along but that’s it. By that I mean learn to write better--practice writing-send out or e-publish stories and novels but you can’t control what an editor wants or how they feel the day they read your story-novel. Same thing with buyers on the internet.

More on that subject HERE  .  

But goals you can have control of and those having to do with my writing are as follows:

Finish the two novels I’m working on--one I am still writing and one I am sending out to a reader or two to look over--and get them ready to send out or e-publish. More on that later.

Work on each of the two novels I am writing and at least make significant headway. I work on them at work and so I don’t think I will be able to finish either but I can get close.  I may decide to work on one at home after I get the two other novel ready to go. 

Do more stories. That one is kinda obvious but I have certain ideas in mind to do. First is finish stories whose openings I did for Dean’s Online workshop recently and do two more about that character and turn them into a five story set for the e-publishing. I also have another opening I did for Dean I want to finish. Plus a couple of other story ideas.

Send out stories.  Also kinda of obvious even though I don’t have any set numbers to send out. It depends on how many stories I do and any new markets I find. I could say send out at least one story per week. Even though I hadn’t thought of it before that is doable and could get me to do it. 

Learn more about writing. I bought a new book on writing and I can reread some of old ones. See about any other online workshops. Keep reading pro writer blogs and David Farland’s Daily Kick. 

That’s it for now I may think of something I forgot and add a PS